Monday, July 6, 2009

A Job is a Job is a Job

I arrived at the breakfast spot to meet the cast and crew before the shoot. The director told me it would be a great time to get to know the other actors. I arrived and sat at a table of people obviously younger than me who ate in silence, didn't watch Wimbledon yesterday, and weren't interested in running lines. I prayed for the end of breakfast while desperately reading every news article I could find on my cell phone.I drove to a pretentious little clothing shop in 5 Points where the tank tops were $70 and the owner allowed his cats to freely roam the floors. I didn't take an allergy pill. I didn't think I needed to take one to go shoot an industrial about consumer awareness in a clothing store.

About 45 minutes in, a few of the other actors finally started talking to me. One asked me how much I was making and I politely lied and said I didn't know. Another gleefully revealed she'd already spent all the money she was going to make on this shoot. (I chose not to remind her the very industrial we were filming was about saving money and consumer awareness.) She asked me if I'd spent mine. I told her I hadn't but that I hoped to spend some of it on an upcoming trip to Vegas. She then got very philosophical. "Oh, wow. I've never been to Vegas. But honestly, I've come to a point in my life where I just don't really binge drink anymore so I'm not sure I'd go to Vegas right now. I might go and just have a few drinks or something."Yep.One of the other girls found out I moved from LA and they all glommed onto me as if I'd come from the Motherland with a message from the leader. I explained I was not there to act and they very swiftly moved on to nail polish colors.

When it was time to move onto the next scene, the director gave me another color shirt to wear and told the other actress to choose something new to wear too. She responded rapidly with something like this:"Oh my God, I didn't know it was that kind of shoot, that's really rowdy, nude? Wow, crazy, next we're gonna like make out, like girls just making out in a store, that'd be crazy and our director would be like WE NEED MORE NUDE GIRLS and we'd be like, no problem we can totally be nude. Anytime boss! No, I'm kidding, I know you meant nude like the color, like something more neutral? Like a beige or a taupe or something? I can definitely find something in my bag that's more like my skin tone or like more natural or something, I know you don't be nude like not wearing clothes or something, God!""Rachel. I said new.""OH, oh, neeeeeeeeew, no problem!"

Then I pulled my ears off and blinded myself with pencils and small rocks and finished the last 3 scenes and went home.